Paint in Photoshop and Animate in Animate cc?

[animator666]

I've been making simple and short animations on Animate cc for sometime. Now I wish to a make Japanese-anime style animation (which involves a lot more drawn frames). But Animate cc lacks the ability to paint at the level of Japanese-anime. I read somewhere that I could paint in Photoshop and animate in Animate.

My question is: Wouldn't that mean that I have to paint every single drawn frame in Photoshop and then import back to Animate cc? I'm talking about 2 - 12 images per second..! What is the shortest way of doing this?

[Asymetrical · Accepted solution]

Well in all honesty I'd say you could easily match the level of Anime animation in Animate (if you can draw that well) because it really doesn't look that unique from anything else except style-wise where the art has those trademark large eyes and elf-like people but the method used to make anime is the same as it is in any modern cartoon. Draw, cleanup and color. What makes anime look unique is the watercolor style backgrounds they use as opposed to full rendered paintings used in American and Canadian cartoons. That and the camera moves they employ.

That being said Photoshop art is pixel-based so you when you truck in or truck out the pixels could become noticeable no matter what bitmap program you choose to paint your backgrounds with if you truck in too far. As long as you're mindful of that and paint your backgrounds at least at 1920x1080 you'll probably be fine. If you use Illlustrator you won't see this happen because a vector recalculates it's lines as you truck in and the edges stay crisp and clear either way.

Here's two examples of doing a watercolor effect in Illustrator

https://design.tutsplus.com/tutorials/how-to-create-a-classic-vector-painting-with-watercolor-washes...

Adobe Illustrator - Advanced Watercolor Vector - YouTube

So no, in Animate you could not paint the backgrounds well but you could do that part in Illustrator and import it into Animate or you could as you say paint them in Photoshop and bring them in as well.

OR you could animate the characters in Animate, export them out with an alpha channel and composite the characters AND the backgrounds in After Effects where you could put some sort of a watercolor filter on the art.

Watercolor Painting Effect - After Effects - YouTube

[animator666]

Thanks for the reply.

I don't mind having to draw a lot. But no matter which option I choose, the painting part will an absolute pain. I've been practicing on Photoshop for a while now for this purpose. But still, having to paint 2 - 12 drawings per second (some of which need deep detail) will not be fun.

I just wish they had a more simplified painting technique for frame by frame animation...